If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
I know our 12-year-old is going to ask for assurance that something like that can never happen to her and would never happen where we live. And I know there will be nightmares and much more anxiety to come for her when neither I nor her dad can make her that promise.
As individuals, we can comfort those who survive and mourn those who are lost. As a nation, however, we can put into practice what I first suggested in the wake of the atrocity in Tucson: Do not speak his name.
By treating the shooter as simply an evil man -- and evil, of course, is irreducible, irrational, operates not on reason but perversions of morality -- we also reduce the actual shooting to a force of nature, beyond our capacity to understand.
You'll be happy to know lunacy hasn't been the norm on the conservative airwaves since the shooting. The response, especially among local conservative talk show hosts, has been more muted, respectful of the victims.
Does violence in media lead to violence in the real world? If we think the world is a 'mean' and violent and unsafe place, the kind of world we see again and again in both the news and so much entertainment media, we live our lives accordingly.
When tragedies like this hit the news cycle, it is often the horror that is most glaring. Sometimes it takes longer for the quieter triumphs of the human spirit to be seen.
There is a prayer of confession of sin that asks for forgiveness for "those things that we have done that we ought not to have done and for those things that we have not done that we ought to have done." There are glaring examples of both in the news.
That there are humans who have devoted themselves to keeping the peace, who respond so quickly and effectively to the call for help, restores my faith in human beings altogether.
We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Maybe we would take better care of each other.
Together let us climb that fence. Together let us claim the future. Together let us make the impossible possible as we work to reconcile division, to transform injustice and to urge the lost onto the road home.
As time goes on and we stray further and further from the language of the Second Amendment, this farce will be proven wrong time and time again.
What a surprise: An evangelical leader takes advantage of a tragic situation to utter foolish and insensitive remarks designed not to comfort the afflicted but rather to remind us why he and his people are right, and the rest of the world is wrong.
James Holmes turned himself into a one-man army with the click of a mouse. That's the latest on the Aurora shooter, with authorities reporting that Ho...
Summer is half over. The little lessons I've learned have become memories. Snapshots in my head of perfect moments with my kids. Still young... and beautiful... and unaffected... and innocent.
This isn't about whether gun ownership reduces or increases crime, or whether recreational drug use is benign or harmful. I aim to keep it simpler and more to the point: Are drug and gun laws proven to be effective at preventing access?
Do me a favor: If I'm ever lost to an act of "senseless violence," please ask the platitudinous politicians to point out that one of the best ways we can "love one another" is by making it harder to kill one another.
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